smow blog compact IMM and Passagen Cologne 2015 Special: Preview

Back at the end of 2014 we mused as to whether or not this might be an apposite moment to quietly remove ourselves from the high octane world of design blogging and seek out pastures new and a calmer, more sedentary, life.

The melancholy of those late December days still lingers, yet with the IMM Cologne furniture trade fair and Passage Cologne design festival standing afore us like some bright eyed, white toothed, flaxen haired vision of our famously promising youth, we have no option but to follow.

Consequently, just as Joshua Kadison once grabbed Moses and drove real fast to Las Vegas, Jessie and the hope of finding the life he once dreamed off, so to will we take the fast train to Cologne.

And yes. Even if that means sharing underground trains in Cologne with drunk middle aged men and women dressed as clowns and laughing riotously at jokes so unfunny, so painfully lame, they make you wonder if they don’t owe their origins to some form of medieval torture.

Fortunately carnivalisten and their ilk are barred from entering the Cologne Trade Fair complex, and so within its pre-fabricated steel walls we can relax at IMM Cologne 2015 and peruse the promised new products from amongst others Thonet, pulpo, Richard Lampert and Müller Möbelfabrikation. All companies who, much to our delight and approval, use IMM to launch new projects rather than waiting for the senseless bun fight that is Milan.

Away from the commercial furniture producers we’re also particularly looking forward to viewing the nominees in the Pure Talents young designer competition and also the so-called “prototypische Parade” of student chair design concepts which has been curated by Axel Kufus and Jörg Höltje from the Universität der Künste Berlin. And which promises to be one of the genuine highlights of IMM Cologne 2015.

We will however also have to venture outwith the security of IMM, for there, in the lands where the pointy hatted people roam, the Passagen design festival 2015 also promises a few delights. The Belgisches Haus, for example, follow up last year’s showcase of new works by Atelier Bonk and Cas Moor with an exhibition featuring projects from some two dozen Brussels’ based design studios, the Museum für Angewandte Kunst, MAKK, present System Design, their exploration of systems in design, while Ungers Archiv für Architekturwissenschaft will welcome the Tools for Life collection by OMA for Knoll. Or at least two objects from the collection, namely the coffee table and counter – and so sadly not the low chair, an object which, as we will never tire from repeating, is and was the highpoint of the collection. And that despite being a chair without legs.

Elsewhere we are particularly looking forward to the exhibition Reich der Hypernova by and from the self-proclaimed Bunker Kollektiv, to catching up again with Max Borka’s “The Mapping Toolbox” project and to viewing Objects in Between, the third exhibition from the collective behind 2013’s Objects for the Neighbour and 2014’s Objects and the Factory. And this year we promise to take a few decent photos from the exhibition.

You can follow our progress through and thoughts on both IMM Cologne and Passagen Cologne 2015 here in the smow design blog and also on the smow facebook and smowblog pinterest pages.

IMM Cologne and Passagen Cologne 2015...... Will it be a year to run up the flagpole and boast about? We'll soon know.....